


Real is the Watchword

by MrsMess



Category: Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Choices, F/M, Introspection, Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 16:11:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19833772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsMess/pseuds/MrsMess
Summary: Veronica is back. Logan is home. That’s real.





	Real is the Watchword

**Author's Note:**

> Equal parts meta and fic, this short piece is a gift and just a little something to add to the anticipation for the Hulu premiere. Unbeta:d and generally unchecked. My 7 yo daughter got to pick the gun based on how cool it looked, we obviously know nothing about weapons XD

Veronica wakes up from the sound of the door. That’s real. Later she knows it doesn’t take more than a few seconds, but while it happens- Someone’s in the apartment, there’s no way she forgot to lock up, she’d need a personality transplant for that to happen. Her hand is on the gun before anything else, before her head even has time to process where she keeps it, her body knows on its’ own. Her heart must be racing but it’s like the wings of a hummingbird. She does inventory coolly, quickly: Who has she pissed off enough lately? Who would go the length? Where’s Pony? Why isn’t she making any sounds?

That’s when her panic slips slightly out of hand and she gets up, and winds up in front of her wardrobe mirror: She’s naked. Naked with a gun, a Taurus Judge, like it’s the wild west, which it kinda is.

I don’t sleep in the nude. You’re home.

Even when she knows, she doesn’t quite believe it. She stands still, listening for wreckage, items breaking, sounds of destruction, and it’s like she hears them just by listening for it. She forces herself still and breathes through it, looks in the mirror again, at her body. She really sees it now, so she feels it too. Where he touched her, palms, nails and fingertips, where they pushed her. Where he kissed her, lips, teeth and tongue, how deep they went. She hears her own breath and feels the tenderness, outside and in, inside, and deeper, somewhere she can’t name. The gun feels heavy and looks so strange next to her bare skin. She clears her throat and has her left hand peel loose the fingers of her right from around the weapon. Both her hands close around it as she puts it back in its place: A compartment under her nightstand specifically built for it.

She wraps herself in a robe and leaves the bedroom, doesn’t even bother checking the watch, she’s too riled up to go back to sleep. She walks into the kitchen and puts on coffee. The coming day is a ripped pennant of light orange lining up with the horizon.

There’s a note on the counter with Logan’s strangely well-mannered words on. Gone surfing. Brought Pony. Love you. His handwriting hasn’t changed since they were kids, but rather how he places the words on paper, evenly, enough space between them for air bags, like breaths when you work out. She strokes her finger over the paper’s surface, lets her nails descend the indentations made by the pen. Her chest aches slightly. She turns the paper upside down. Logan is in no way vague in his communication, but sometimes meager, minimalistic in what he shares. It’s part of his journey, to expend less chaos and collateral damage, to control and steer it into something deliberate.

There’s a bowl and glass left by Logan in the dish rack, and she dries them off while waiting for the coffee. She takes her time, distracts herself with menial tasks. The tactic is old, but means something different these days. It used to be part of her at least partially functioning fake it ‘til you make it approach, her way out, up, away. Now it’s a way through. And sure, her instinct is still to pretend she wasn’t ready to shoot an intruder just now, but she’s not supposed to do that anymore. In this new, or old, depending on how you see it, life of hers, real is the watchword. Stay real, keep it real. She can’t deceive herself into expecting anything different. Logan is home and she’s so unused to his movements around their home that she thought assailant before thinking lover. That’s real.

She fills her cup of coffee and climbs a bar stool. She looks out the window. She understands Logan’s purpose, sees his trajectory so clearly for the most part these days, and feels stupid for not being able to distinguish her own. How can you end up back where you started and still have so much road behind you?

She squints at the still murky ocean, looks for surfboards. Things between her and Logan are good. That’s what she answers anyone who asks, but she doesn’t really think that word covers it, for that more are needed. Things are different, but she knows the two of them wouldn’t be back together if that was all they were. On the contrary: In the most basic ways, they are who they’ve always been.

The approaching sunrise becomes visible on the waves, along with the surfers. They look like debris from this distance, bopping at the surface of the water at the mercy of the ocean, who brings them along to the crest of her waves, and pulls them into her valleys. They look so helpless, like no outside force can change what’s about to happen to them. She knows that’s not the case though, she’s had the theoretical training, knows what to do at different points of the wave, she’s even tried it, but with less success. After a series of wipe-outs she decided it wasn’t for her. She couldn’t control her response to that particular force of nature, she repeatedly landed in fight mode despite knowing she would fail, fall. It’s not far off from what she used to feel with Logan to be honest. It’s a defense mechanism. She’s good at controlling herself when she holds the reins of every situation, only she could never manage that with him. Unstoppable force, meet immovable object. Rock, have you met a hard place? She’s had time to consider all the appropriate metaphors plenty since she got back and is still short of words on what would possess her to put herself through it again. Because it’s not that different to be honest, she still feels it, the pull into fight mode.

Only, she knows the alternative now. The opposite. What flight mode really entails for her. She didn’t learn it while being in it; on her way to being a lawyer with a nice boyfriend and a well-kept life, and if she hadn’t returned here, she might never have learned. As soon as she got back to Neptune she woke up, got back her color vision, felt real. She remembers waking up in Keith’s bedroom after his accident, feeling panic, almost as sharply as at the hospital earlier that night, needing Logan to stay, to get closer, heck, just needing things again, and being too weak to pretend she didn’t. She hasn’t stopped feeling sore around him since then, tender, an ache that makes her want to be curled up in his arms all the time. That’s what has changed. She can separate loving him from keeping her guard up against it, but she still feels both things, that hasn’t gone away.

She rinses off her cup in the sink. She can’t stay with him though, he has to go, And not in a nine-to-five type of way either, but months at a time, far away, with lots of radio silence, and she has to forget about it, not think about him, sometimes for days, so she can focus, and not worry, she’s gotten good at it, has started to enjoy the solitude even. But then he gets back and she remembers.

She walks up to the window and leans her forehead on the glass. She has no way of knowing which one of the figures in the water is Logan, if he’s even there, but she could find out. She could march down to the beach, look for Pony, his clothes, towel, ask around after him, even. But she’s not supposed to do that anymore either. Accept what I can’t change. It works better for her to focus on that part. She always had plenty of courage to change things, but grant me the serenity, with a side of wisdom to know the difference.

She sighs, wants sound, but can’t bring herself to put on music. Instead she picks her cup back up and fills it with more coffee. She heads into the hallway, opens the door and sits down on the floor next to it. She gazes out into the morning and listens to the ocean, the traffic, the gulls.

She’s back to fixing things the only way she knows how, by securing some kind of justice for those who can’t do that themselves, and if that pisses off a few people, well… in that she never feels helpless; she is the ocean, the force of nature, there’s no destruction she can’t match. Meanwhile Logan’s off being a hero in the most boldly absurd way, soaring like some monstruos bird of prey, matching her destruction in turn. Says he can’t imagine doing anything else either. She swallows the bitter, cooling coffee. Can’t help thinking he’s only found a new, justifiable way to be in peril. For a second there she hates him. For needing to do that to himself, to them, for doing to her what she does to him. That’s real.

Perhaps there’s no escaping that’s what makes them tick, being that barbed tether in each other’s lives. She likes to imagine that he feels what she does, maybe he even sees her journey with greater clarity than she’s able to. Because that’s the thing, right? Why he feels so real to her; because he always gets her. More than anyone else. With warts and all. That’s real.

The sun is up. The colors return. She hears Pony bark, and a moment later she sees Logan. Her chest aches. She stands and Pony runs to her hitting her legs with her wagging tail. She pets her and tries keeping her mind at the end of her fingers as she does. Logan puts down his board and tosses his wet suit over the laundry wire, and she sees all this despite keeping her eyes on Pony. Unreal. Him being here, not just in her mind. She ushers Pony inside and closes the door.

When she turns back to Logan he already has an arm around her, pulling her so close her feet lift slightly off the ground. Her hands are on him before anything else, before her head even has time to process it, her body just knows on its’ own, She makes a sound without meaning to and clings to him. He presses her to the wall, their mouths locked in each other’s. It’s filling an empty glass, opening the shutters to let it all in, anchoring them to this place they get to inhabit together, making it real. It hurts. She breathes through it. His hands cup her face, his lips moving against hers.

“Been up long?”

“Nah.”

The thing is she’s chosen this. This man, this life. That’s real. And what she saw in the mirror wasn’t fear. She’s not scared - she’s ready.


End file.
